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Subtitled “For the past two years, Americans have accepted more harm to children in exchange for less harm to adults”, the New York Times, long a supporter of closing down American society for an extended period when COVID appeared, has an article on the devastating impact that policy had on American children.
Not surprisingly, the writer begins his article: “I have long been aware that the pandemic was upending children’s lives. But until I spent time pulling together data and reading reports, I did not understand just how alarming the situation had become.”
Falling behind academically across the board, in every subject. Academic achievement crisis. Mental health trauma to a national state of emergency level. Rising suicide attempts. Uptick in disruptive behavior. In other words, everything I posted about on the other board a few years ago and was shouted down. We screwed America’s children in a long-term way for the short-term benefit of American adults.
No Way to Grow Up – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
How could you not see this happening? Of course, if you just don’t give a damn about the next generation, then it’s a moot point. And I don’t think America has really cared about kids since the 1950s or 1960s. Otherwise, the standard dependent deduction for IRS would have kept pace with inflation.
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Ahhh yes, The NY Times problem/problems du jour.
Here is an alternate perspective that prioritizes other circumstances as the root cause of underperforming kids. sociological problems that have been ignored/out of favor by government and school leadership. Another “Moynihan” problem.
I am certain it would be difficult to stand in front of a class full of kids from single parent families and present statistics about the relative failure of such kids. But isn’t about time we prepared kids for real life decisions?
But instead our courageous leaders modify school curriculums to include CRT, white privilege, gender fluidity and affirmative care for transitioning? I can’t imagine a larger failure of leadership.
It’s time leaders had to show some balls before their names were placed on a ballot.
Here's a toast with one last pour, may it last forever and a minute more;
Good fortune seems to you have sung, to live and love way past long -
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*singing* I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way….
All that aside, the only way a culture or nation survives is by having and raising children. There are many countries that are having a fertility crisis. Japan may cease to exist in a few generations, for example.
Study after study have shown that having children increases civil engagement and raises the happiness levels of people. Also, study after study have shown that depriving people of the ability / means of having children has extremely bad effects on mental health. Maybe it’s basic biology, but from a policy perspective, society should absolutely be subsidizing and encouraging people to have kids.
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I was all in until you got to “subsidizing”. I don’t believe people will stop having children without a subsidy. 🙂
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[quote quote=6864]I was all in until you got to “subsidizing”. I don’t believe people will stop having children without a subsidy. 🙂[/quote]
This is an interesting aspect of the debate. Part of the reason couples aren’t having children is the perceived economic cost. But people do respond to incentives. The Scandinavian countries have turned to subsidies to try to bring their birth rate up. China will start soon. At this point, a low birth rate is such a negative externality that I believe it should be subsidized through tax policy (not direct subsidy because that just increases inflation).
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I’ve been reading a book called “The end of the world is just the beginning” by a guy named Peter zeihan. He has a lot of interesting and provocative ideas about demographic impacts on economics and social policies including globalization.
One of the things he explains clearly is the drop in value of children as economies mature. It’s an interesting take and one that certainly points to why the U.S. would put children last in so many policies.
Covid policy has been a tragedy for kids, but it’s a consistent thing in the U.S. the baby boom generation has leaders that are quite possibly the most selfish and narcissistic in the history of the world. Look at trump and Biden, pelosi, Feinstein, and the other oldies that just won’t go away. There is no grace in that generation of leaders that says “you know what? I will step aside.”
It’s a stark and sad reality that bill Clinton, who was inaugurated 30 years ago and who left office in 2001, is younger than Joe Biden.
how can a generation that doesn’t trust its own kids to govern decide that children are important?
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Sic transit gloria mundi (so shut up and get back to work) -
OK, I’m going to be an a’hole. Why is the government subsidizing having children? I would ask a similar question about ALL tax credits and deductions.
I think the idea is that society should subsidize children given that they are our future. And the levels of society’s support mapped out in the average number of children in nuclear families, which have been declining for native citizens. My granddad had four kids, and his wife was furious she couldn’t have more. His father came from a family of 13 kids (Irish, natch), and 8 survived past age 5. My dad had three kids, I have two…and almost all of my friends have one or two kids. I have one friend with five children, none with three or four. Quite a few with zero kids.
On the other hand, we import millions of people who come here unasked from other countries, so we’re in no danger of running out of people…
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California’s population is dropping, too…there’s been a net 700,000 loss since April, 2020.
California’s population dropped by 500,000 in two years as exodus continues (msn.com)
At one time, Detroit had 2.4 million people. Geographically speaking, it’s a fairly large city. They now have 632,461. There are over 100,000 unoccupied residences in Detroit proper.
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